Friday, September 18, 2009

daily snapshot(s): the tai lam brick

In the weeks after fourteen-year-old Tai Lam was gunned down on a Ride-On bus after a night in Downtown Silver Spring last fall, those who knew and loved him created a makeshift memorial around a lamppost on Ellsworth Drive. The disheveled but startling display forced anyone who walked by to reflect on what had happened. Some thought it was an eyesore; in March, four months after it had appeared, Sligo at Silver Spring, Singular suggested finding a more permanent way to remember the Blair High student.

Finally, one has been created. It's a single brick in the sidewalk along Ellsworth Drive, bearing the name "TAI LAM."

Is this enough to contain the hopes and dreams of a kid who hadn't even finished his first semester of high school? Or is it a subtle way to remember someone in the place he loved coming to every weekend? It doesn't feel right stepping on his name. On the other hand, long after the rest of us forget what happened on that bus last year, the spot will serve as an almost-secret reminder for those who knew Tai Lam well and forever carry him in their hearts.

3 comments:

An honor student mercilessly gunned down for no real reason, by illegal alien gangsters who had been in police custody within a few previous weeks. Illegal aliens who were arrested on weapons charges, and released "because Montgomery County is not in the business of enforcing Federal immigration law".

But Tai Lam's death was not in vain. Along with the truly heinous Home Invasion and Arson Murder of Lila Meizell by illegal aliens who forged her checks and then went on a shopping spree at Wheaton Westfield Shopping Town across the street from the smoking ruins of the retiree's home on the day after Thanksgiving, Tai Lam's pointless shooting at last galvanized a massive outpouring of citizen outrage.

Montgomery County policy changed. All persons arrested for crimes of violence or for weapons violations will have their immigration status checked.

Too bad for Tai Lam that the County had, for years, followed a policy that in 2008 would result in half of the murders of citizens be by illegal aliens, almost all of whom had been in police custody and if immigration status checks had been allowed would not have been in the country to commit mayhem and murder in the suburbs of the Nation's Capital.

Those -- who were not pathologically incapable of exercising logic -- always knew that it would come to that. It was inexorable. From history comes the present, from choices in the present evolves the future. They picked their path for reasons of political expediency and campaign contributions.

Had they not, in 2008 the murder rate would have been half of what it was.

Because of County policy of never collecting immigration status data -- a policy devised to forestall statistical analysis forcing policy chances -- it is impossible for the County police or for any other agency to refute this.

They chose to suppress collection of the data, but that only means that they cannot argue a position contrary to my statements.

And my statements are fully supported by the legal records. Because "murder will out".

Out of the closet, Montgomery. You tried to hide the truth and people died because of it. Twice as many as would have, otherwise.

Rest in peace, Tai Lam. Rest in peace, Lila Meizell.

Rest in peace, all who were murdered by people who were released from police custody rather than being deported, "because Montgomery is not in the business of enforcing immigration law".